Speaker 1: Dear Governor is a production of I Heart Media and
Speaker 1: three Months Media. If you are moved by Jarvis Masters
Speaker 1: and his thirty years struggle on San Quentin's Death Throw,
Speaker 1: and you'd like to support his cause, please consider signing
Speaker 1: a petition on his behalf. Visit Free Jarvis dot org
Speaker 1: slash podcast to sign your name to an open letter
Speaker 1: to California Governor Gavin Newsom. Dear Governor Newsom, Dear Mr
Speaker 1: Governor Newsom. This is an open letter to Governor Gavin Newsom,
Speaker 1: Dear Governor Newsom. Public Buddhist nun and teacher Pema Chodren writes,
Speaker 1: I'm grateful to be Jarvis Masters teacher in part because
Speaker 1: he has taught me so much. I have rarely encountered
Speaker 1: anyone who expresses the essence of Buddhism in a clearer,
Speaker 1: more moving way than he does, And I deeply admire
Speaker 1: how David Chef has capture that hard one wisdom in
Speaker 1: his book The Buddhist on Death Row, how one man
Speaker 1: found light in the darkest place. In the last episode
Speaker 1: we heard from David and why and how he chose
Speaker 1: to spend years writing the story of Jarvis's life. I
Speaker 1: wanted to hear Jarvis's side of the story why he
Speaker 1: agreed to give permission an unfettered access to his story
Speaker 1: to a perfect stranger. Let me just say something about
Speaker 1: David and my relationship. It went so fast, I mean
Speaker 1: in terms of our relationship as to human beings, him
Speaker 1: trying to understand my life and me having the ability
Speaker 1: to trust him in ways that I've never trust anyone
Speaker 1: telling that story. I think one of the reasons why
Speaker 1: I gave a lot of trust to him that I
Speaker 1: would not have anyone else's because he read my two books.
Speaker 1: He read That Bird Has My Wings and he read
Speaker 1: Finding Freedom. So he came with a understanding of where
Speaker 1: I understood my life and he followed up on that.
Speaker 1: It was not, you know, me having to tell him
Speaker 1: about a lot of scenes, a lot of experiences that
Speaker 1: I had without him already knowing about it. So he
Speaker 1: came to me with an idea of just continuing that
Speaker 1: story in a way that would impact more people. You know,
Speaker 1: I was all for that, but I also knew that
Speaker 1: there was gonna be a lot that I didn't write
Speaker 1: about that he was going to write about, and not
Speaker 1: all of it was gonna be you know what, I
Speaker 1: would have said, you know, but I was fine with it.
Speaker 1: I was fine with it because my story was out
Speaker 1: in front of his and that's just the way I
Speaker 1: felt about it. Were you nervous about what he might
Speaker 1: find out was or what he might write about since
Speaker 1: he didn't have any control over it. I don't want
Speaker 1: to say I didn't care, but I would say that
Speaker 1: I trusted him to care about what he thought would
Speaker 1: be the best thing to tell people about me. Why
Speaker 1: did you trust me with it? I don't know. My
Speaker 1: whole attitude was that my story was out there, and
Speaker 1: I put it out there. So whatever you guys do,
Speaker 1: I don't you know you're gonna do it. He's not
Speaker 1: the district attorney's office. He's not someone who's prosecuting me,
Speaker 1: and anyone's absent of that has to have something good
Speaker 1: to say about me. Um. And plus, you know what,
Speaker 1: Cornea was tired. I was really tired. I mean it
Speaker 1: was some time after I lost my appeal, and it
Speaker 1: was just I wasn't trying to you know, I didn't
Speaker 1: have that kind of energy no more, you know, um.
Speaker 1: And it was all about finding someone you can trust,
Speaker 1: you know, because it my belief and I tell guys
Speaker 1: that around here, you know, you got to trust somebody.
Speaker 1: At some point, you're going to trust somebody because if
Speaker 1: we don't trust no one, then there's nothing gonna happen.
Speaker 1: You You, I can bet you nothing's going to happen.
Speaker 1: So you know, you trust someone and let it, let it,
Speaker 1: let it go where it's gonna go, you know. Um.
Speaker 1: But it was interesting when I felt interesting about David
Speaker 1: and I write, you know, him writing that book was
Speaker 1: that he was asking some really really good questions that
Speaker 1: I had not thought about, you know, and I became
Speaker 1: interested in how is he going to write this? You
Speaker 1: know as a writer? You know, can you an example
Speaker 1: like a question that was out of the blue, His
Speaker 1: understanding of what happened to me as a child, you know,
Speaker 1: his understanding of of how uh I end up going
Speaker 1: back down to Los Angeles as you know, um, after
Speaker 1: I was released from the California Youth Authority. Um. Him
Speaker 1: seeing the more better than me, the good some good
Speaker 1: things about me that I had not wrote about because
Speaker 1: I just didn't think that was the story of my life.
Speaker 1: And he said, you Arsad, is the story of your life.
Speaker 1: Following is an excerpt from the Buddhist on Death Row,
Speaker 1: in which David describes how Jarvis's traumatic childhood influenced some
Speaker 1: of the Buddhist beliefs he embraces today. Audiobook read by
Speaker 1: Michael Boatman. Jarvis was placed in nine foster homes and
Speaker 1: three boys homes, including some in which he was starved, beaten,
Speaker 1: and kept in squalor. At thirteen, he was moved from
Speaker 1: the foster care system into the Division of Juvenile Justice,
Speaker 1: where the brutal treatment escalated. When he was arrested for
Speaker 1: petty crimes stealing a bicycle joy riding. He was placed
Speaker 1: in youth detention centers, where he was subjected to more beatings, burned,
Speaker 1: locked in closets, and made to pummel other boys. If
Speaker 1: he refused, counselors beat him harder. He ran away when
Speaker 1: he could, and often found his way back to Harbor City,
Speaker 1: where he sometimes stayed with his aunt, Cynthia's sister Barbary.
Speaker 1: There was always music playing. Barbery played the same records
Speaker 1: over and over, Smokey Robinson, Gladys Knight, the Delphonics, She
Speaker 1: Loved a song by George Clinton's Funkadelic Free Your Mind
Speaker 1: and Your Ass will follow and must have played at
Speaker 1: a thousand times. Jarvis laughed to himself at the thought
Speaker 1: of who had helped him understand the words of a
Speaker 1: great lama from Tibet, George Clinton. He said it aloud,
Speaker 1: Free your mind and your ass will follow. According to
Speaker 1: the Rand Corporation Inmate Survey, about fift of people in
Speaker 1: prison claim innocence of their convicted crime, and yet the
Speaker 1: National Academy of Sciences has determined that only four percent
Speaker 1: of those on death row are truly innocent. I wanted
Speaker 1: to hear from David as to why he was so
Speaker 1: steadfast and his conclusions that Jarvis is innocent of the
Speaker 1: crime that he was convicted of. I started to read
Speaker 1: everything I could about Jarvis, and I went up to
Speaker 1: his lawyer at the time of lawyer with Joe Baxter.
Speaker 1: And I went up to Joe's offices in Santa Rosa
Speaker 1: and there was a wall full of boxes filled with
Speaker 1: documents from years and years and years of lidication related
Speaker 1: to his appeal. And I read volumes, and the more
Speaker 1: I read, the more I was convinced, beyond the shadow
Speaker 1: of a doubt that you know that's the legal term.
Speaker 1: You know, he he was innocent and he should not
Speaker 1: be there. He had a trial that was appalling. You know,
Speaker 1: he there was no justice in this trial, and there
Speaker 1: was no reason that Jobs should be in prison. And um,
Speaker 1: so I became I feel like, there's a controvertible person.
Speaker 1: He's innocent and he was framed, and that he shouldn't
Speaker 1: be there. Are you against the death penalty as a rule?
Speaker 1: I am. I feel like the death penalty for both
Speaker 1: moral reasons, and I get well, it all comes down
Speaker 1: to moral reasons, but a lot of it also is
Speaker 1: the reality that I feel like, even if you understand,
Speaker 1: I mean, I do think a lot about it's easy
Speaker 1: for me to say I don't believe in the death
Speaker 1: penalty if somebody murdered, you know, the people closest to me, um,
Speaker 1: my child, or my life and my parents or somebody
Speaker 1: you know what I steal still feel that way, um,
Speaker 1: and I think it's a little presumptuous for me to
Speaker 1: say that I would. I would, I hope I would.
Speaker 1: But regardless of that, we have to end the death
Speaker 1: penalty because it's not I mean, if there was a
Speaker 1: way to know the people that we were executing we're
Speaker 1: guilty of crimes, then you know, and if you buy
Speaker 1: the death penalty, then maybe that's you know that you
Speaker 1: can go there. But you know, if we execute one
Speaker 1: person who's innocent and we know that we have um,
Speaker 1: nobody should support the death penalty because then we are
Speaker 1: becoming murderers, just like you know, other killers. When get
Speaker 1: let out, where are you going to take him? What's
Speaker 1: the first thing you're going to do with him? You
Speaker 1: know what, I've whatever he wants to do. But the
Speaker 1: thing that I've always fantasized with him because I spent
Speaker 1: so much time because I'm a surfer and being outdoors
Speaker 1: and being on the beaches, so my it rejuvenates me,
Speaker 1: you know, when I'm stressed out about I'm having a
Speaker 1: hard time's uh, you know, I think about Jarvis a
Speaker 1: lot when I'm out there to walking on the beach,
Speaker 1: and I would just, you know, give anything to be
Speaker 1: able to take that walk with him. He calls himself
Speaker 1: a fish too. He loved the water. Yeah. I mean
Speaker 1: some of the things that you know are I don't
Speaker 1: even know if they're in the book anymore because I
Speaker 1: can't remember what was cutting what wasn't cut at different points.
Speaker 1: But you know the fact that you know, everybody has
Speaker 1: this black and white idea, this cliche of what Jarvis's
Speaker 1: life is like, and a lot of it was that,
Speaker 1: you know, that violent, brutal life, you know, gangs and
Speaker 1: drugs and violence, but you know, there were these moments
Speaker 1: of joy and of you know that, like when Jarvis
Speaker 1: told me that this kid took him out to learn
Speaker 1: how to go abaloney diving, It was like, no, you
Speaker 1: have this rich life. Yeah, everybody who's listened to this
Speaker 1: podcast knows Jarvis's amazing sense of humor that he's able
Speaker 1: to maintain that would you true to h We laughed
Speaker 1: so much over the years. Jarvis was so funny and
Speaker 1: we just, oh, my god. You know, I don't even
Speaker 1: know if he knows how funny is. Sometimes we'll say
Speaker 1: things and I think it's just who he is. I
Speaker 1: think it's his spirit and the fact that he was
Speaker 1: able to retain that sense of humor over the course
Speaker 1: of years as being brutalized says something about his self.
Speaker 1: It's who he is deep down inside. And it also
Speaker 1: says something about the way he can he views the world.
Speaker 1: And maybe part of the reason he survived and such
Speaker 1: you know, good shape, is that he often was able
Speaker 1: to see this light. And sometimes the humor was gallows humor,
Speaker 1: and sometimes you know, it was just silly, frivolous stuff
Speaker 1: that would come up. But part of that being able
Speaker 1: to laugh as well as to cry, because we did
Speaker 1: cry a lot too together. It's part of his magic
Speaker 1: and maybe part of his survival. I know you interviewed
Speaker 1: a number of his family members. I was just wondering
Speaker 1: at that was a trait that was common in their family,
Speaker 1: in their dna um. You know who I did interview.
Speaker 1: I interviewed his father and his cousin, and it's definitely
Speaker 1: a master's family trade. They laughed. It was the best was.
Speaker 1: I visited Jarvis's once with his father. The two of
Speaker 1: them spent the whole time laughing, teasing each other. You
Speaker 1: know about God, they're old times about you know how
Speaker 1: you know how much we they gained? How much? How?
Speaker 1: Oh God. He definitely got some of his sense of
Speaker 1: humors from his family, from his dad, for sure, and
Speaker 1: I saw that. And when they laughed, by the way,
Speaker 1: it was the same booming, infectious laugh. Besides Jarvis, in
Speaker 1: writing the book, is there any other character that you
Speaker 1: came upon that made a big impression on you? I know,
Speaker 1: like Melody or my Child was the first person you
Speaker 1: mentioned in the book. Well, Jarvis is sort of you know,
Speaker 1: it's an amazing person, so it's maybe not surprising that
Speaker 1: he's surrounded by amazing people one after the other. Melody
Speaker 1: or a Child, you know, was the investigator who connected
Speaker 1: with Jarvis at the time when he was facing a
Speaker 1: trial that ultimately led to the death penalty, and she
Speaker 1: was with one and he talks about is the one
Speaker 1: who really helped him more than anybody ever had in
Speaker 1: his life and opened them up to the idea that
Speaker 1: so sometimes we can't change her external circumstances, you know,
Speaker 1: we can control the way we perceive them and the
Speaker 1: way we feel inside and so that and she was
Speaker 1: totally inspiring to have a children. His teacher is, of course,
Speaker 1: one of the most amazing people I've ever met and
Speaker 1: talked about, somebody who has helped millions of people and
Speaker 1: helped me at the personal level in my family. Susan Shannon,
Speaker 1: another Buddhist teacher who was the chaplain, one of the
Speaker 1: chaplains in the prison. She is this is remarkable. I
Speaker 1: would talk to her sometimes and she loved Jarvis, and
Speaker 1: she talked about you know working with Jarvis studying Buddhism
Speaker 1: inside the prison. I mean, he just as this extraordinary person.
Speaker 1: He grabs, you know, he brings for extraordinary people around him.
Speaker 1: Rebecca sold It, you know, one of my idols and
Speaker 1: who I've always revered as a writer. You know, I
Speaker 1: got her through Jarvis because she too a friend of
Speaker 1: Jarvis is and devoted to him. I'm blown away by
Speaker 1: everybody that I've met in his Indus circle, Like everybody,
Speaker 1: everybody is an exceptional individual, absolutely, and they really are.
Speaker 1: And and you know there's the reason for that. Again.
Speaker 1: You know, people connect with him because he's very special
Speaker 1: and you know, and he connects with people who that's
Speaker 1: probably another Buddhist precept. We don't know that good energy
Speaker 1: attracts good energy. Yeah, yeah, there is something about that,
Speaker 1: and there is this whole you know, the world of
Speaker 1: people around Jarvis also are um. The people around Jarvis
Speaker 1: are also anybody who's gonna step foot in the prison.
Speaker 1: It says something about them if they're not being forced
Speaker 1: with guards. Because we've changed. You've got to open and
Speaker 1: be open and have a bigger heart than maybe he's
Speaker 1: expected to have a lot of people, because you have
Speaker 1: to understand and respect and be connected to the idea
Speaker 1: that people in prison are people. You know, any of
Speaker 1: them are innocent, but they're all people. And Jarvis talked
Speaker 1: a lot about that. Yeah, what if it that Brian
Speaker 1: Stans have said that we are not our worst mistake,
Speaker 1: We are so much more than that. Several years ago,
Speaker 1: Jarvis managed to get his hands on an illicit cell phone.
Speaker 1: David writes about it in the epilogue of The Buddhist
Speaker 1: on Death Row. My phone chimed at three am, alerting
Speaker 1: me that a text had arrived. Usually I turned it off,
Speaker 1: and but I had forgotten. And I looked at the screen.
Speaker 1: The text came from an unidentified number. It read is
Speaker 1: this working? Then the phone chimed a second time for
Speaker 1: a second text. This one was a photograph, a selfie
Speaker 1: dimly lit sitting in front of a Jimmy Hendricks poster.
Speaker 1: Was Jarvis grinning hugely. I responded, w t F. He
Speaker 1: wrote back, what does that mean? What the funk are
Speaker 1: you doing with a cell phone. It's no surprise that
Speaker 1: cell phones are banned in San Quentin and other prisons
Speaker 1: where telephone access is strictly monitored and controlled. The prohibitions Notwithstanding,
Speaker 1: black market cell phones are thriving business in many prisons,
Speaker 1: including San Quentin. Jarvis bought his phone from an inmate,
Speaker 1: who probably bought it from a guard. Jarvis said it
Speaker 1: was better not to ask. A friend paid for cell
Speaker 1: service and Netflix. The seller's pitch included the promise of
Speaker 1: unlimited movies, so Jarvis was disappointed that the cellular signal
Speaker 1: through the prison walls was insufficient to allow streaming. His
Speaker 1: phone got only one bar. However, necessity is the mother
Speaker 1: of invention, and prisoners have a lot of time on
Speaker 1: their hands, so they often devise ingenious workarounds. Though the
Speaker 1: signal was still too weak for streaming, Jarvis learned that
Speaker 1: he could use some phone apps offline. He could, for instance,
Speaker 1: take photos, make video and audio recordings, and attached them
Speaker 1: to texts, which he could then send if he put
Speaker 1: the phone in a laze potato chip bag attached to
Speaker 1: a wire and slid the package under the cell door
Speaker 1: and out into the corridor where the signal was stronger.
Speaker 1: A few phone calls got through, and he sent me
Speaker 1: pictures of his cell and his tear to can through
Speaker 1: the mesh that covered the door. He also sent a
Speaker 1: recording of an inmate complaining that Jarvis's typing was too
Speaker 1: loud as he texted another friend, this phone blew my
Speaker 1: mind wide open. I mean ten twelve hours a day.
Speaker 1: If I had money, I could have ordered a pizza
Speaker 1: pizza emoji. He'd figured out how to use emojis. Could
Speaker 1: you see a pizza man at the front gate for
Speaker 1: a Jarvis Masters For almost four decades, Jarvis's access to
Speaker 1: technology was limited to TV, radio and the electric typewriter
Speaker 1: Pamela had sent him when he was arrested at nineteen.
Speaker 1: There were no personal computers, never mind Internet or smartphones.
Speaker 1: Once in the two thousands, when he had been in
Speaker 1: the back of a prison van taking him to the hospital,
Speaker 1: he delighted in the sights of the Blue Bay, billowing
Speaker 1: white clouds, and the Golden hills in the distance. When
Speaker 1: he looked at street corners, he was shocked to see
Speaker 1: so many people talking to themselves. He remarked on it,
Speaker 1: and a guard told him they were on the phone,
Speaker 1: speaking through microphones and listening through earpieces. Other than that,
Speaker 1: the nearest he had got into modern technology was as
Speaker 1: it was depicted on TV, where it seemed like science fiction.
Speaker 1: David also shares what happened to Jarvis when he was
Speaker 1: caught with the band's cell phone, along with a powerful
Speaker 1: gift of perspective from the eyes of a Buddhist practitioner.
Speaker 1: A couple of months after Jarvis got the phone, guards
Speaker 1: conducted a random search and found it The phone had
Speaker 1: been hidden inside his copy of the book We're All
Speaker 1: Doing Time. They also discovered a vape and Jarvis was
Speaker 1: written up for the infractions. After a disciplinary hearing, he
Speaker 1: was sent to solitary where I visited him. There were
Speaker 1: no snacks, just the smeared glass wall, like when I
Speaker 1: first met him more than ten years early. Here it
Speaker 1: was sad to have a barrier between us again, but
Speaker 1: Jarvis looked good. As I was thinking that, he looked
Speaker 1: at me and said, man, you look stressed. I told
Speaker 1: him I'd gotten a speeding ticket, that my father in
Speaker 1: law fell down and my wife was trying to help him,
Speaker 1: that we got an astronomical water bill because of a leak,
Speaker 1: and that I had spent the morning and bumper to
Speaker 1: bumper traffic. And then as I pulled off the freeway,
Speaker 1: some asshole cut me off and flipped me off. I
Speaker 1: was still frustrated and angry. When I looked over at
Speaker 1: Jarvis and saw that he was smiling, it hit me. God,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I said, I'm complaining about my life here.
Speaker 1: Jarvis said, no, no, no, that's not what I'm thinking.
Speaker 1: I'm just thinking that you had a hell of a morning.
Speaker 1: You better relax. You're gonna die before me. He told
Speaker 1: me about the only time he'd been in a traffic
Speaker 1: jam in his life. He was driven to the hospital
Speaker 1: for tests after a seizure and traffic was at a standstill.
Speaker 1: The three guards and the driver were piste off, but
Speaker 1: Jarvis was thrilled. He gazed with fascination at people in
Speaker 1: their cars. A family was an animated conversation, a woman
Speaker 1: was singing, A few drivers were alone, one appeared angry,
Speaker 1: and others were stone faced. He watched them and his
Speaker 1: heart melted. Decades before, when Jarvis had taken his first
Speaker 1: Buddhist vows Chat, Duke to kup Renpoche gave him a
Speaker 1: cryptic instruction he should learn to see the perfection of
Speaker 1: all beings. That was what he saw in the faces
Speaker 1: of the people in their cars, and he was moved
Speaker 1: to tears. Next week, the private investigator who was assigned
Speaker 1: to Jervis's capital case thirty years ago, what she learned
Speaker 1: during her investigation, and why that led to a lifelong friendship.
Speaker 1: Audio excerpts courtesy of Simon and Schuster. Audio from The
Speaker 1: Buddhist on Death Row by David Cheff, read by Michael Boatman.
Speaker 1: Copyright by David Cheff, used with permission of Simon and Schuster, Inc.
Speaker 1: The Buddhist on Death Row is out in paperback this week.
Speaker 1: This episode was written and produced by Donni Fazzari and myself,
Speaker 1: Corny Cole. Our theme song sentenced is compliments of the
Speaker 1: band Stick Figure from their album Set in Stone. Stu
Speaker 1: Sternbach composed the original music. Nate Dufort did the sound design.
Speaker 1: For more information on Jarvis and to find out how
Speaker 1: you can follow his case and support his cause, please
Speaker 1: visit Free Jarvis dot org. For more podcasts. For my
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows